Lamoille Canyon

My summer season has officially begun and, oddly, ended in snow. *sigh* Lamoille Canyon is located in the Ruby Mountain range near Elko, NV and is beautiful!

I think it's going to be a really fun summer. This week was kind of introductory but we did manage to lay about a mile or so of new tread! My project is called Secret Lamoille (Shhhh, it's a secret). We're building a new trail, which in the end is going to be around 62 miles long! Currently, the trail is about 2.5 miles long. We're contracted to construct 7 miles this summer, however, due to some previous incorrect trail building, we have to build some cribbing on a few switchbacks. This will consume a large portion of our time, I'd imagine, seeing as how we're going to have to haul about 50 timbers measuring 8''x 8'' x 16' by hand up the side of a mountain! There is also a lot of rock work which is going to require us hauling a 60lb Pionjar up the mountain, too!

This summer is definitely going to whip me into shape. Every morning we have to hike the 2.5 miles (which is only going to get longer) up the mountain to the site where we're working. So far there is an elevation gain of about 1500 ft, which is just going to keep increasing, too. I am also the only one on the crew that can chainsaw. That means, I have to hike all that way with a chainsaw on my shoulder. I'm at the head of the trail clearing the corridor so the crew can cut some new tread. Because of the elevation and trail location, the view is amazing!


We are camping down a ways at a ranger station in the town of Lamoille. It's not the best camping situation, but I can't really complain because there is a bar we're allowed to go to (still, no drinking) to watch some Red Sox games! ;) There are also two dogs that are around pretty often and a turkey, that I rightfully named Tom, that roosts on top of the building every night.

The view from here is also stunning.


As I mentioned, we did get snowed out a day early. On Sunday, we had to hike up the mountain in near blizzard conditions to retrieve our tools that we cached. By the time we got up there, there was about 2-3'' of snow on the ground and many more to come. Our supervisors called the office and they were told to bring us on home. Now I have 7-days off! :) What to do, what to do. Dave is flying in on Thursday, so the later part of the week will be spent with him! Can't wait!

What's an Orientation Without a Bear or Two?

This past week was orientation week. We met our new crews and had to go through all those long, drawn out powerpoint presentations. The weather was actually pretty bad all week too. I'd even go as far to say the worst I've had since I started in August. It rained everyday, snowed everyday and was bitterly cold at night and didn't get much warmer during the day. Luckily, the year-longer's didn't have to stay Thursday night.

During orientation we watched a powerpoint on trail building and maintenance, which as dry and boring as it is to stare at a screen all morning, it was actually pretty informative. Since I've been on a chainsaw crew all year long, we didn't see a lot of trail work so I am actually learning as we go as well. I can tell I'm going to enjoy it though. I've heard rumors about some possible rock work on the trails! It'll be fun to get back into that again. (For those of you that don't know, I landscaped for 3 summers and we mostly did rock work). Thanks Al and Addi for everything you taught me!

After we were given all the information, we actually got a chance to put our knowledge to the test. We drove down to Carson City to this place where a brand spanking new trail needed to put in. We were actually able to lay some new tread. The trail was leading up to this beautiful waterfall! It was fun and a lot of work and I can tell it'll be a good workout this summer!

My crew seems pretty cool so far. They're kind of quiet but it may just be because for some of them English isn't their first language. My crew will be working closely with another crew all summer so we'll have one giant crew. Between the two of us we have a guy from France, Germany, two from Switzerland, Italy, a girl from Malaysia and China. We also have some US people as well. (I'm still standing strong as the only person from CT!)

I'm sure you're wondering about the title of this post? Well, while we were camping this week, we had a visitor every night. A Mr. Black Bear. The first night I woke up around 5:00am to what I thought was some one yelling. I waited a few minutes and then definitely heard a guy yelling and saying "Get out of here bear!" I think a few people got out of their tents as well and started banging on the bear locker and Uhaul to scare it off. It ran away, came back about 10 mins later and started false charging people. Eventually it left for the rest of the night. It turns out, the bear pounced on this guy Seth's tent while he was sleeping (not a newbie but that would have been awesome!). It ripped a huge hole in the rain fly and the actual tent from its claws. Seth was okay, he didn't get hurt, just a little shaken up.

The following night, I wake up at about 2:30am to what sounds like someone getting in the bed of a truck and moving stuff around. I knew it was the bear again and was waiting and waiting for someone to get up and scare it off because I certainly wasn't about to get out of my tent to check it out. O:-) No one scared it away but after he got his fill, I think he left on his own. The next morning I find out that the bear opened the bed of Seth's truck, climbed in, opened his food bins and had himself a feast. Poor Seth - the bear must have had it out for him!

I left that next day, however, I heard that he came back again and actually broke into another truck. The bed was locked but somehow he got his paw underneath the hatch and just ripped it open. He again got into the food bins and ate most of the food. Obviously this is a problem bear and needs to be tranquilized and relocated before someone seriously gets hurt. It definitely kept us on our toes all night, every night and I think gave the newbies a good solid scare. Got to weed out the weak, ya know?

Tomorrow I leave for my first 8-day tour out in Lamoille Canyon. I'm really excited and can't wait to get into this summer season. A newbie asked our Supervisor if we'll be in bear country or if there were any big predators we'd have to worry about. Her response: "no bears but mountain lions and if you see one of those, it's pretty much too late." ;)

Back on Track

Okay, so I owe you a lot of backtracking. I'll try my best. :) So when I moved up to Reno, I literally dropped my stuff off at our office (because I was homeless) and went to the airport to spend the week with Dave. It was a wonderful visit. I got to meet most of his family and more of his friends from home. I think seeing where someone grew up and being introduced to long-time friends can really bring you closer to that person. I had a lot of fun! Until I had to leave that is..

I was flying out of Milwaukee, had a short layover in Denver then onto Reno to be back in town around 11:30pm on Sunday night. Not plenty of time to get ready for an 8-day tour on Monday but enough. However, the plane that was supposed to pick us up in Milwaukee broke down in San Fransisco (specifics, I don't know), but it was going to be a 3.5 hour delay into Milwaukee which would make me miss my connection in Denver (that being the last flight to Reno that night). Awesome. So United, (not to forget to mention which airline it was that screwed up so badly) UNITED printed me out a hotel voucher for the Hilton Garden Inn for the night and I was going to fly out first thing Monday morning. I went down to baggage claim, got on the Hilton Garden shuttle, got to the hotel only to be told that they don't have any connection with United and that that voucher pretty much meant nothing. Are you kidding?! I had to wait for the shuttle, go BACK to the airport, go back through ticketing to get ANOTHER hotel voucher that would actually do something. Finally I got to a Clarion that accepted United credit and hunkered down for the night.

I was able to fly out the next morning but I didn't get back into Reno until 2pm Monday afternoon, well after my crew had already left for an 8-day tour in Sloan Canyon which is near Las Vegas. (Don't ask my why they had us move up to Reno then send us on a tour in Vegas). My options were: 1) Drive my own car back down to Vegas, which is about a 8.5 hour drive, and join my crew, 2) Take some days off - using the rest of my 2 days of vacation that I have left, or 3) Talk to Nick - the man in charge. I went with #3 and he was able to stick me on a crew for a 4-day that was working in Sand Mountain, which was only about an hour away from Reno. So instead of going to Sloan Canyon for an 8-day with my crew, I spent 2 4-day tours at Sand Mountain with a different crew.

This switch saved me a lot of $ in gas and probably a little of my sanity. It was wonderful being on a crew of people I had never worked with before. It was so refreshing and fun. As much as a pain in the a**, the United screw up was, it turned out pretty well.

While we were at Sand Mountain, we were working on decommissioning some illegal OHV trails. Now, Sand Mountain is a recreation area permitting the use of OHV's. It's pretty much a massive sand dune (600 ft tall, 4 miles long and 1 mile wide) that people tool around on, on their 4-wheelers and dune buggies.
So road decommissioning seems like a never-ending task - job security, I guess. But the reason we were doing this was because of the Sand Mountain Blue Butterfly. It's a rare butterfly only found here that lives for only a week and depends on a plant called Kearney buckwheat. There is a small population of this plant on the back side of the dune that illegal OHV'ers were killing. By closing these roads, we're hoping to save the plant and in turn, protect this butterfly. Yay butterflies. Haha. It was a hot two weeks hiking around in sand but it wasn't too bad because of the new people I got to work with. To give you an idea of the size of the dune, those are two of my friends in the foreground:

While we were camping at the Fallon RV Park (beautiful placement behind a gas station next to the highway), we had one other tent camper who arrived on our last night. His name is Richard Noble and he is a gay rights activist who is WALKING across the country speaking to congressmen along the way. His intention is to amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include sexual orientation and gender identity. He started in Sacramento, CA and his destination is the statue of liberty. He was a very cool guy with great stories and I wish him the best of luck! Here is his blog if you wish to follow his journey.


Now I have the weekend off and have orientation next week. Orientation, you ask? Well, starting next week we're getting put on new crews with people who have only signed on for a 3-month stint for the summer. Us year-long'ers have to go to orientation again to bond with the newbies. *rolls eyes* We've planned some pranks, of course. One involves the use of the wonderful ShePee! That will make em question some things! O:-)

I'm really looking forward to the new summer season and a new project. It's crazy to think my last day is going to be August 8th! Woah! Don't even think about asking what I'm doing afterwards! :-P I should have Internet in my apartment this week so posts should become more frequent again.

"Live it, protect it, explore it"

Address Update

So I have officially moved back up north to Reno and HAVE an apartment. Movin' up in the world. :) Here is my new address if you wish to send cute little cards, sweet "I miss you's" or chocolate filled care packages. :-D

8455 Offenhauser Drive, Apt #1032, Reno, NV 89511

Cannon Video!

The quality isn't that great, but it will be on Facebook as well.